County receives award

The first order of business for the Butler County Commission on Tuesday morning was the presentation of a plaque from Steve Samualson from the Department of Water Resources.

Kari Adams

The first order of business for the Butler County Commission on Tuesday morning was the presentation of a plaque from Steve Samualson from the Department of Water Resources.

“The staff of Butler County has put in quite a bit of extra work to ensure the safety of the citizens and the compliance to regulations,” said Samuelson. “FEMA and the Department of Water Recourses recognizes this extra work and will give the citizens of Butler County an extra 10 percent discount on their flood insurance.

“The work your staff did will help make the county safer. Not only will this extra effort insure that you are better organized, but you’ll have a better and stronger program than you had several years ago.”

The Commission then began diving head first into their agenda for the day.

Rod Compton, director of Planning and Development, brought a request before the board to consider approval of a one-time variance to the 2003 International Building Code. The building, which is still in the process of being built is located on SW 190th Street near the city of Rose Hill. Previously, the board had granted the request to rezone the area in order for the commercial building to be built and building permits granted.

“After the approval of the rezoning, an agreement was worked out with the city of Rose Hill,” began Compton. “Once this facility is finished, the city would annex the property and then would provide sewer services. It was decided then to keep the parcel in the unincorporated area because of different building codes in the county. There were concerns there might be conflicts with the different building codes.

“Even with the county’s building codes, there is a requirement for fire sprinkler systems. We have worked with the fire department. There was an agreement and methodology worked out as to what is acceptable with the fire department. It requires a variance from what is technically in compliance with our codes. A sufficient sprinkler system would be installed, but it would just go about it a different way.”

Upon questions from the Commission, Eric Triplett, Butler County flood plain administrator, began to explain further.

“What we need to do is conclude our obligation so we can pass it off to the city,” said Triplett. “The sewer connection and the water supply is up to the city – it is under their jurisdiction, not ours. We’re going to hand them off a completed building and then the city can make the connections. All this is just a technicality to conclude our business on the building at that point so that a certificate of occupancy can be issued. We’ve even made provisions to test the fire system even if it is not connected.”

With no further questions, Commissioner Dan Woydziak moved to approve the variance and the motion was carried 4-0 with Commissioner Peggy Palmer absent.

Following the approval of the variance, Director of Public Works Darryl Lutz brought a request before the board for the repair of two tandem axle dump trucks in the Public Works Department Fleet.

“In our operations fleet, we operate six tandem axle dump trucks out of each highway shop for a total of 12,” began Lutz. “We run five routinely and the last one if we need a chip seal or particularly in the winter time. In the rear frame of the trucks, we’ve got some rust that has caused some cracking in the frame and essentially it renders them non road-worthy.

“We have three options: sell them as is, repair them, or replace them,” he continued. “Our last one purchased was somewhere around $120,000-$125,000. These trucks, if they were operational, could easily have a resale value of $20,000 and as they are now, it would only be $10,000. We need these trucks in the winter during our salt and sanding operations.

“This one truck does need some transmission work and the estimated cost of that work will be $3,500. The frame repair estimate is $7,500 per truck just from what they can see, but if we can get 2-3 more years out of these trucks, that’ll pay for the repairs of these trucks.”

In regards to concerns regarding the prevention of rust build-up on the remaining trucks, Lutz said, “We do have a couple other trucks in our fleet that have this same kind of frame. It’s attributed to the salt that is put on the roads when we’re treating. Apparently we’ve just not paid close enough attention to the confined areas where these two frames are put together. A barrier can be added to prevent any further rusting.”

The commission voted 4-0 to repair the trucks.

The commission also:

• approved the acceptance of right of way dedication as part of a request by Dennis and Linda Daugherty to split a parcel of property of 15.8 acres into two parcels.

• approved a request by Carl James for a Homestead Lot Split with APO in order to a separate homestead and five acres from a parcel containing approximately 39.5 acres.